Something annoyed me Thursday morning. Anyone who knows me would not think this an uncommon occurrence, but this made me angry.  I was listening to Nova937’s Nathan & Nat with Shaun McManus as they were discussing the over-dramatisation of the third season of my favourite reality show So You Think You Can Dance Australia.

I wasn’t getting defensive – in fact, I’m inclined to agree with their point of view. I’ve cried three times this week and I haven’t even broken a nail.

But before throwing it over to the listeners to hear what they thought, Shaun McManus said he had banned it from being watched in his house, calling it the “gayest show” on TV. NOTE: I could be paraphrasing – I tried to make a note of the exact words but was stuck on the freeway manipulating a merge with a typical Chinese driver and a sudden swerve made me drop my iPhone.



As if picking on SYTYCD isn’t sacrilegious enough – the show IS the homosexual experience on TV. Dancing has never been the cool thing to do; the cool group hang out on the school oval, not in front of a wall of mirrors wearing a unitard and knee-highs. As gay people we all know what it’s like to feel that what we do isn’t cool, and how emotional an experience it can be to rise above that.

So in that respect, SYTYCD is a pretty gay show, but I’m sure that analogy was not what Shaun McManus had in mind Thursday morning.

Most people wouldn’t see Mr McManus’s comment as a big deal. The phrase “that’s so gay” has made it into the Australian vernacular. It’s been bandied around in our schools for years, and now it’s making its way into our workplaces and our radios! But any readers who balked at me using the intentionally racist phrase “typical Chinese driver” will hopefully understand that the term “that’s so gay” vilifies homosexuals in the same way that phrase vilifies the Chinese.

It is about time we realise that a statement like “that’s so gay” vilifies same-sex oriented people throughout the country. Every time a young boy or girl who is questioning their sexuality hears such statements, it takes them further away from accepting themselves. We’ve all been there!

As Australians, we don’t accept racial vilification, so why is it OK for us to degrade homosexuality with this flippant insult? I am not accusing Shaun McManus or Nova937 of vilification. When I complained to Nova937’s Managing Director Gary Roberts, he raised a valid point that Shaun’s comment was not in the same league as John Laws’ comments in 2004, which were found to vilify homosexuals by the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal. I am sure McManus did not intend to vilify anyone, least of all his colleague Nathan Morris. But, as with sexual harassment, intent is irrelevant. The point is that someone was offended by his comment, and I am sure I am not the only one.

After complaining to Gary Roberts and not being satisfied that I was being heard, I went into attack mode. I created the slogan THAT’S SO GAY? NO WAY! and was emailing a friend to create a logo when I discovered that the proposed domain name for my anarchic website was already taken. www.thatssogay.com.au is a website and foundation created by Daniel Witthaus. Daniel tours Australian schools, holding seminars and workshops and selling his book, Beyond ‘That’s So Gay’: Challenging Homophobia in Secondary Schools. I was excited and empowered to find that I’m not alone in being fed up with the overuse of this offensive term.

But while I think it is important to discuss this phenomenon in our schools, I also think it’s about time we discussed it in the workplace and the adult sphere. Just like the terms “gook”,” nigger”, “boong” and “wog” I hope that one day the term “that’s so gay” is one that we mutter under our breaths in fear that we’ll be heard by a society that (at least on paper) rejects such vilification, rather than being thrown around on Perth radio by former footballers who should know better.

For those playing at home, In August 2007 Laws was again embroiled in controversy after suggesting on-air that "Chinese drivers are probably the worst drivers on the face of the earth." I hope my intentional irony was more accessible than Laws’s claims that he is not racist.

Next week’s open community forum (7pm, Monday 8th February) at Loton Park Tennis Club is set to feature one of the most important discussions our community has had in years.  While many will see the discussion as being about what events they want Pride to stage, the reality is that, unless we properly define Pride’s role and then work together to support it and complement it, then we may not have much of a community at all in a couple of years time.

Eight years on from gay & lesbian law reform, our community is struggling for both definition and direction.  Ten years ago, we had a broad range of community groups, with clearly defined roles and plenty of passionate volunteers to do the work.  Our venues were pumping, as they provided a safe haven in a sometimes threatening world and were still the first choice for gay and lesbian people looking to pick up or to meet that special someone.  Our gay and lesbian media, with rights still to fight for and injustices aplenty to report on, tackled issues head on and were not afraid of ruffling feathers, if they thought it was in our best interests.  These days, with many people struggling to remember the time before law reform, most of our community groups struggle for committee members and our venues are increasingly “mixed”, as gay and lesbian folk socialise more and more at straight venues and use the internet to satisfy their more personal needs.

Put simply, our community is much changed and tenuous and it has been for a while.  Two years ago, Pride was struggling for survival.  Last year, it was Loton Park.  This year, it is Pride again.  It is no individual’s fault and it will require all of us to find a solution.

My view is that Pride’s major events are what has held our sense of community together in the years since law reform.  The Parade and Fairday provide our community with opportunities to come together and interact with both each other and individual members of our community.  Without events of these types, those networks would break down.  Events like Fairday and the Parade also provide gay and lesbian publications with content, advertising revenue and key distribution points.  They draw huge crowds into Northbridge that feed into the biggest nights of the year for venues like The Court and Connections.  Events like Fairday and the Parade provide our community with things to look forward to, get excited about and focus our energies on.  Essentially, they are a core part of our culture, without which, many other aspects of our culture could disintegrate and fall down.

There are a number of views about what form the Parade and Fairday should take in the future and you can read some of them in our discussion paper.  However, given the importance of these major events to everything else we identify as “community” in Perth, it is vital that we do everything that we can to ensure they are retained, even if they are modified to suit the times.

The State Government and the City of Perth provide a total of $65,000 to stage Fairday and the Parade and, all other things being managed well, this funding should underwrite the viable staging of both events.  Historically speaking, in the years that Pride has made a profit, Pride has focused on these core events.  In the years that Pride has made a loss, Pride has risked and invariably lost these funds by staging new events or engaging in new expenditure not related to staging its core events.  Committees, including this year’s committee and committees I served on, have always done this with the best of intentions, but we always seem to end up back at the same point every few years, discussing another Pride loss, wondering if Fairday and the Parade will be staged again and wondering how we are going to fix things.  The situation is never helped by the fact that Pride rarely has a committee that is much more than half full, making it difficult to manage the major events, let alone the new ventures that new committees embark on from year to year.

After a great year in 2008, in which the community showed strong support for festival events, attendances at Fairday, the Pride Party and the Pride Film Festival all fell in 2009.  While there are differences of opinion as to whether Parade spectator numbers were up or down, the only available indicator (door sales at the party) suggests a drop in numbers.  As a result of these outcomes losses by new events like the Pride Ball and new enterprises like merchandise, pre-audit figures provided by Pride indicate a loss of about $35,000.  This represents a financial turnaround of more than $70,000 on the previous year.  On top of this, measures that the 2008 committee put in place to improve the financial performance of Fairday and the Pride Party appear to not have worked in 2009, with the deterioration in the financial performance of Fairday accounting for much of Pride’s loss and, if the rumours are true, Connections Nightclub thinking twice about staging the Pride Party again.  After making a huge contribution to Pride's financial turnaround in 2008, last year's party is reported to have struggled financially.

Two years ago, Pride was broke and was saved by current Co-President Charles Denham’s generous loan of $35,000.  This is the only reason Pride survived then and those funds remain the only reason Pride is solvent now.  We had a near-death experience two years ago and, while Pride is still afloat, we must take action after this second major warning that the current model isn’t working.

Unfortunately, much of the debate in recent weeks has focused on whether events staged by organisations other than Pride are the cause of Pride’s problems.  With the level of activity within the community having shrunk so much in the post law reform era, I refuse to believe that the answer is to shrink it even further by discouraging people other than Pride from staging events.  Asking a half-dozen volunteer committee members to shoulder the responsibility for staging all of our community’s events isn’t fair.  It also isn’t fair on the broader population, who deserve to enjoy a diverse range of activities throughout the year.  Putting events like Fairday and the Parade at risk by asking Pride to risk its government funding, not to mention the fees paid by its members, in staging new unfunded events isn’t fair on our community either.  There has to be another solution.

While Pride struggles to break even from year to year, there are businesses that make tens of thousands, and, some, hundreds of thousands, of dollars on the back of Pride events.  In my view, the answers to Pride’s financial problems lie in ensuring Pride gets it fair share of the revenues it generates, and the best bang for every dollar it spends.  If this approach is taken, and if we clearly define Pride’s role, we could move past this ongoing problem of having to “save Pride” and into a new era of collaboration and growth in our community.

In my view, there are five simple steps we could take that would improve Pride’s financial future, reduce the workload on committee members, improve attendances at Pride’s major events and encourage the development of a diverse range of events throughout the year.

DEFINE PRIDE'S ROLE

(1) We need to identify a model for staging Fairday and the Parade that reflects community wants and needs and make these events the primary focus of Pride’s energies.  Depending on committee resources, Pride could stage no-risk events throughout the year, such as sundowners and quiz nights, to raise funds to stage these events.  However, Pride should not risk the $65,000 in State and local government funding received to stage events like Fairday and the Parade by staging new unfunded events or engaging in new expenditure not related to these core events.

(2) Pride should truly step into the role of the umbrella (peak) organisation that our community has always lacked.  While it focuses its energies on staging Fairday and the Parade, Pride should assist other community groups and businesses who stage events consistent with Pride’s mission and objectives by promoting these events to Pride members through Pride’s web site, e-newsletter and, potentially, a physical newsletter.  In return, other community groups and businesses (like us) that stage events could stage some events as Pride fundraisers and offer Pride members discounts on admission to our events.  This could create, similar to Melbourne, a diverse range of sustainable organisations, united under Pride’s mission and objectives, running a diverse range of events that they are passionate about and have the skills, experience and networks to stage well.

PROMOTE PRIDE'S EVENTS BROADLY

(3) Pride should identify a public relations company willing to develop (and possibly implement) a public relations strategy on a pro-bono basis that identifies the best mix of advertising opportunities, publications, news angles and online and social media to reach a more geographically spread community, with many members who rely on online forums to get their news and information.  With attendances at all Pride events falling significantly in 2009, the current strategy needs a re-think.

ENSURE PRIDE GETS ITS FAIR SHARE

(4) Pride needs to bring the management of the bar at Fairday back in house.  In 2008, Pride introduced an entry fee to Fairday of $5 (members) and $10 (non-members), which significantly helped the event’s bottom line.  At the same time, Pride started paying an events management company a significant fee to manage the event, and this has clearly helped the event to run more efficiently.  However, in 2008 and 2009, the events management company also took a share of up to 65 per cent (2009) of the bar profits, representing tens of thousands of dollars of Fairday revenue.  During the 15 years preceding this, many of us put in countless hours behind the Fairday bar and I, for one, would be happy to get my Responsible Service of Alcohol Certificate over the Internet and volunteer again.  This single initiative would see a massive improvement in Pride’s bottom line.

(5) Pride and The Court need to repair their relationship so that The Court makes a financial contribution to Pride that reflects the huge windfall that Pride delivers the venue following Fairday and the Parade.  Long gone are the days that Pride could make money from staging its own dance parties in warehouses.  In this environment, Pride should not favour one venue over the other and should endorse both  The Court and Connections as hosting official Pride after-parties.  The Court and Connections should then donate a per-head amount to Pride that recognises the expenditure and effort that Pride puts in to bringing people into Northbridge.  If each venue donated just $5 per head to Pride under this model, this could equate to more than $20,000 of new income.  This would represent a tiny proportion of the night’s entry and bar receipts and would be a smart investment, when you consider both the importance of those nights and the importance of maintaining a cohesive gay and lesbian community to the financial performance of those venues.

In the four years that I was on the Pride Committee, I reckon I served with over 50 Pride committee members and I don’t think I have met one, then or since, who had not joined the organisation because they wanted to make Perth a better place to live for LGBT Western Australians.  That is what we are about at GAYinWA and I have no doubt that all the people that work at our venues, publications and other gay and lesbian businesses, as well as all of those who volunteer their time for our various community groups, have the same goal.

The ideas I have outlined above could improve Pride’s bottom line by more than $50,000 alone each year, would improve attendances at Pride’s major events and could foster a diverse range of events, staged by a diverse range of community groups and businesses, united under Pride’s mission and objectives.

Unity + Diversity = Pride

Tawdry Heartburn is the latest manifestation of the many alter egos of Perth performing artist, James Berlyn, whose previous larger than life incarnations include the likes of Crystal Balls,  Farrah Fawcett of 'Hairquake fame', and Donna Frock. Make no mistake, however, Tawdry may be a qualified nail technician but he is all male.

The man who once upstaged Rue Paul by a good 15 centimetres (of wig) is inviting anyone with a personal crisis, past or present, to pop into the Beck’s Music Box during the Perth International Arts Festival and “get it off your chest” over a nice manicure. If you have a ticket to one of the many Music Box events or plan to attend any of the free festival events to be found there every night on the late side, then get yourself an appointment.

Tawdry will professionally paint and polish your nails, James tells us, while inviting you to consider divulging an anonymous secret via his collection of antique typewriters. Cough up your darkest secrets and type out your innermost thoughts onto some note paper—anonymously of course—and slip it quietly into the supplied confessional box. Your deepest desires, grandest heartbreaks and most perverse passions will then become part of an art installation for the duration of the festival. Should you by some chance develop an addiction to unburdening your soul, you'll be invited to join Tawdry's Facebook page and become a Twitter follower.

Tawdry Heartburn’s Manic Cures is James Berlyn's most recent work and premiered in 2008 at Connections nightclub. It later won the jury prize for the most innovative show at the Putting on an Act season 2009 at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. Tawdry will be at the Beck's Music Box down on the foreshore every Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF). Go on, you know you want to...

After a year off in 2010, we are working to bring Love All back to Loton Park Tennis Club in 2011, with GAYinWA Events and Loton Park forming a working group to explore options for the event’s continuation.

Love All was first staged in 2008, designed as a unique outdoor summertime event, combining music, fun, gourmet food and drinks and stalls.  The event was staged by GAYinWA Events with support from Lick Events and Sally Nagy as a fundraiser for Loton Park, Australia’s only gay and lesbian tennis club.  Despite the event not yet making a profit, we assisted Loton Park negotiate difficult financial times by donating more than $4,000 to the club.

We believe that life for Perth’s GLBT community is enriched by having a year-round calendar of events and are keen to ensure Love All becomes a permanent fixture on our community’s calendar. We’ll be exploring all options with Loton Park to secure the financial support and sponsorship this event needs to be staged into the future.

GAYinWA originally chose the February / March period to stage Love All as it is an otherwise quiet time on the Perth GLBT calendar.  Pride is currently reviewing the events it stages and we will await the outcome of that process before making decisions on the time of year we hope to stage Love All.

While we have a lot to celebrate and be proud of this Australia Day, there is a growing danger that the values that many of us identify as being "Australian" are under threat from a new and harder-edged sense of nationalism.

There has been a lot of discussion in recent weeks about the growing number of young Aussie men walking around with tattoos of the Southern Cross adorning their bodies. I first noticed this late last year, when I thought it very strange that I had seen two people with a Southern Cross tattoo during one grocery shopping expedition to Maylands. There is nothing wrong with this, in itself, of course – of all the things people get inked, the Southern Cross is not the least attractive design. However, it is becoming a little unoriginal and the cohort that are adopting it in this way are spoiling my love for this national symbol.

As we approach Australia Day, I find myself reflecting on my identification with being Australian. I find myself thankful that I live in a country with such abundant wealth and opportunity, thankful that my country gave me a good education and continues to provide me with a first class public health system; thankful that I don’t have to pack a gun when I leave the house and that our environment remains relatively unspoiled. On top of being thankful, I am proud of every achievement our relatively small nation makes on the global stage, whether it be our successes on the sporting field, our humanitarian efforts or our achievements in academia and science, however I am conscious that most of these achievements are possible only because of the great wealth and natural advantages that we have been blessed with.

What I am not proud of is the changing sense of national pride that the increasing number of Southern Cross tattoos represents. Whereas, Australian national pride used to have a bit of a cutesy, self-deprecating, not so serious feel to it, it appears to now have a much harder edge – an edge which sees many young Aussie blokes define their sense of Australianism through a common understanding of who is and who isn’t an Aussie. White, Anglo-Saxon (heterosexual) male – Aussie. White, Anglo-Saxon (not fussy) female – Aussie chick. Everybody else – un-Australian. And in case you can’t identify them as being Aussies, they drape themselves in flags and inscribe images of the Southern Cross wherever you can see.

Of course, it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to identify this new trend’s origins. There is a generation of young Australians, who I call the Howard Generation, that grew up during the post 9/11 noughties learning to hate Muslims and suspect anybody with a dark beard (Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or just plain dark featured) of carrying a bomb. By the political design of their creator, the Howard kids paradoxically learned to hate the people fleeing the oppressive regimes of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and arriving by boat in Australia as much as they hated the oppressive regimes themselves.

The Cronulla Riots in 2005 saw the Howard Generation make their first step onto Australia’s public stage, with hundreds of white, Anglo-Saxon Aussie blokes draping themselves in the Australian flag and hunting the local Lebanese in packs. While I am not naive to the actions of some Lebanese men that sparked the riots, the fact that our national symbols were adopted by young, white Anglo-Saxon Aussie men and the issue depicted as an Australian versus un-Australian battle was disturbing and both a national shame and international embarrassment. Of course, the situation was made worse in the weeks ahead as Big Day Out organisers decided to ban Australian flags from their events. Naturally, this caused patrons to bring Australian flags on mass, giving rise to the increased flying of the flag and adoption of the Southern Cross that we see today.

There was a time that I saw the Southern Cross as an alternative national symbol to the Union Jack, much the same as I saw Waltzing Matilda as an alternative national anthem. These days (and possibly because I only have the Boxing Kangaroo to fall back on), I have come to the realisation that the symbols we choose to represent our sense of national pride are irrelevant. What defines us more, both at home and abroad, is how we, as a people of great wealth and natural advantage, treat those who are less fortunate and possibly different than ourselves. And, in this, despite all of our wonderful achievements and gifts as a nation, I am not sure that we are progressing.

I was sitting at a bar in Johannesburg recently and a black South African, upon learning that I was an Australian, told me that he recently considered moving to Australia... but heard that Australians were too racist.

Who would have thought?

Pride Treasurer Andrew Baietta’s open letter in the January edition of Out in Perth raised concerns about the effect that events staged by GAYinWA have on the performance of Pride events.

We understand that we are not alone in being blamed by Mr Baietta for Pride’s financial woes – in a comment left on one of our blogs, he blames his fellow committee members as well.  That said, we can only answer for ourselves and given that Out in Perth does not have a letters page or a forum for community members to discuss issues, our reply takes the form of this post.

Given that Out in Perth did not give us the opportunity to include a response to Mr Baietta’s letter, which was disappointing (but not surprising), given the highly targeted comments in the letter and the questions Mr Baietta raises about our motives and integrity, we provide the following as a response.

Interestingly, nobody from the Pride committee has ever raised concern over our events with us, nor have they ever knocked back the cheques we have handed them for funds raised at our events, which they have even been known to attend and request free drinks at from time to time.

That said, we understand that we might be an easy target if committee members are seeking someone else to blame for the more than $70,000 turnaround in Pride’s financial performance in 2009, with the organisation set to record a loss of approximately $35,000 (subject to audit).  We understand that we are not popular in some sections of the community for questioning the relevance and future of the Pride Parade, but we don’t shy away from leading a debate that has to be had.

If Mr Baietta read our discussion paper closely, he will have noted that we believe that the Parade needs to continue because of the important role it plays for young people in our community.  However, we believe that a change of format is necessary if the long-term decline in participant and spectator numbers is to be arrested. Interestingly enough, the options we ourselves raised for the future of the parade were clearly discussed at the recent Pride forum, and reported as "news" in Out in Perth.

In his letter, Mr Baietta refers to our observations that Parade spectator and participant numbers have declined over time.  He uses his own observation that Parade participant numbers increased slightly in 2009 (on the back of free entry in the Parade’s 20th year) and dismisses our views, and the views of many within the community, that the Parade needs to change.  In addition, his comments potentially lead readers to conclude that by expressing these views about the Parade, we are seeking to undermine Pride events to the benefit of events that we stage.  In effect, Mr Baietta is seeking to discredit the discussion we are leading about the Parade by discrediting us.

Mr Baietta raises questions about whether life members of Pride WA should be permitted to stage events that he contends compete with Pride events and make it harder for Pride to make ends meet.  This is consistent with a comment he left on one of our blogs a few days ago, in which he says that it is “appalling” that we stage events.  We would be interested in the views of our readers on this topic.  But first, we would like to give you a little bit of background on GAYinWA, because we feel that we are sometimes unfairly misrepresented.

GAYinWA was started in September 2006 as a news web site.  At the time, there was no regularly published LGBT newspaper in Perth, with Out in Perth not having been published for months.  GAYinWA was incorporated as a small business with five individual shareholders including: Gavin McGuren, who was a co-founder of Pride, Gay & Lesbian Equality and WA's first gay newspaper, the Westside Observer (forerunner to Out in Perth), which he edited for 13 years; Daniel Smith, a former long time committee member and co-president of Pride WA, Fiona Wong, a former long-time Pride WA committee member and volunteer and Nigel Etherington, a long time community photo-journalist.  Both Gavin and Daniel are Pride life members.  None of us is employed by GAYinWA and we effectively work as volunteers within our own business.

Throughout 2007, we focused on developing our web site and we realised some revenue through online advertising.  Heading into 2008, we decided to stage events and made a conscious decision to stage all of our events well clear of the Pride Festival, so as to offer our community opportunities to be entertained and to socialise throughout the year and so as not to compete with Pride events.  We also made a conscious decision that we would contribute part proceeds from all of our events to local community groups.

In March 2008, we launched Love All at Loton Park Tennis Club, which was an outdoor food and music event.  In its debut year, this event did not make a profit, but GAYinWA donated $1,000 to Loton Park.  In April 2008, we launched the GlamFest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in partnership with Melbourne Queer Film Festival.  In its debut year, GlamFest performed well and we were able to donate $1,265 to Gay & Lesbian Community Services (GLCS).  In October 2008, we staged the Great Gay & Lesbian Debate as a part of the Pride Festival and were able to donate $700 to the GLBTI Retirement Association (GRAI).

In December 2008, we staged Christmas deLuxe at Luxe Bar and we donated $900 to Pride WA.  In January 2009, we sponsored the play Vincent and we donated a further $700 to Pride WA.  In February 2009, we again staged Love All at Loton Park and, despite attendances increasing, the event again did not make a profit.  However, given Loton Park’s precarious financial position at the time, we donated $3,000 to Loton Park.  In April 2009, we again staged GlamFest and we again raised more than $1,200 for GLCS.  In July, we launched the Cocktails & Girls cocktails night for lesbians and their friends, with Laura Foster (initially as a one-off event) and we have raised more than $1,500 for cancer research, as well as donating a further $300 to Pride WA.  In October, we again staged the Great Gay & Lesbian Debate, with GRAI raising about $1,000. And, in December 2009, we staged Christmas deluxe again, raising $500 for GLCS.

In December 2008, we launched WAX Magazine in partnership with Evolution Publishing.  Unfortunately, it was the wrong time to launch a magazine and, given all the work we were putting into our events, we over-committed ourselves and we had to make the difficult decision to discontinue this venture.

Going forward, we have a summertime debate scheduled for 21st February, which will also raise funds for a local community group, GlamFest scheduled for April and we are soon to make some announcements regarding Love All.

Because we are a business and not a community group, we understand that it is easy for people to point the finger at us and question our motives. (Interestingly the motives of other business, gay and straight, that target the community are not questioned.)  Given we are spending a lot of time talking about Pride’s financial performance, we are quite happy to share ours with the community as well.  Since our establishment in 2006, we have made a loss of approximately $10,000 and the donations we have given to community groups, including Pride WA, have come out of our own pockets.  Unlike Pride, we are a business and, as such, we are not eligible to receive the more than $65,000 in local and State Government funding that Pride receives to underwrite its core events.  We have to earn every dollar we spend and we have to watch our expenses.  This is the first time that we have shared this information with the community because we haven’t viewed it as being important – it is our way of making a contribution to the community.  However, given that we are now accused by Pride’s Treasurer of staging events that damage the performance of Pride’s events and of doing this for “self gain” we feel the discussion needs to be balanced with this information.

It is also worth noting that we have never received a thankyou letter from Pride for the contributions we have made.  We have also received negligible coverage of our numerous donations to local community groups in Out in Perth, with this perhaps contributing to the fact that the reality of GAYinWA is somewhat different to the perception of some.

So... Pride suffered a turnaround in its financial performance of $70,000 in 2009 and recorded a loss of about $35,000.  Given Pride achieved new sponsorship of $4,000 from Heathway in 2009 and achieved savings of $6,000 by changing the way it performed its book-keeping and administrative functions, the deterioration in the financial performance of Pride’s events in 2009 is more like $80,000.  Given the amount of space Mr Baietta dedicated in his open letter to the impact of Pride life members staging events, you would think that this was the main factor behind Pride’s problems.  While the claim is not supported by the comments of either Pride co-president, we can understand the logic behind Mr Baietta thinking that Cocktails & Girls may impact on Pride’s monthly Women’s Sundowner.  However, we think it patronising and ludicrous if Mr Baietta thinks that Perth lesbians, numbering apparently just a few hundred, only leave the house once a month or that all lesbians like hanging out with only other lesbians and attending the same venue.  Plus, given Pride’s women’s sundowner historically only raises about $600 a month, we find it difficult to believe that the total impact of Cocktails & Girls, or the three times the Pride committee changed the sundowner's venue in 2009, could amount to much more than $1,000 – a tiny fraction of Pride’s financial deterioration.

It is similarly ludicrous if Mr Baietta thinks that GAYinWA staging Love All in February damages Fairday in September, or GAYinWA staging GlamFest in April damages the Pride film festival in October.  In fact, in his comments on our blogs, Mr Baietta has not yet acknowledged that, in the year that GlamFest debuted at Astor Cinemas, Pride staged its most successful and well attended film festival ever, just six months later, at Cinema Paradiso, with Kieran Bycroft putting together an amazing programme.

In a comment on one of our recent blogs, Mr Baietta refers to our donations to Pride as “token.” It might be true that our total cash donation of $1,900 in 2009 might be small when compared with the $70,000 deterioration in Pride’s net revenue in 2009 or its $35,000 loss.  However, we think our contribution significant, particularly when you consider we also made a loss during that time and when you consider that the only business to donate more cash to Pride WA during the same period was Connections Nightclub.  In fact, V-Energy’s sponsorship in 2008, the loss of which Pride attributed much of its ills to in the recent Sunday Times article, amounted to only $3,000.  Token indeed.

In his open letter, Mr Baietta implies that GAYinWA should not stage the events we currently stage and that this will help Pride with its financial problems.  Absolute nonsense.  Should the WA AIDS Council cancel StyleAID because Pride now stages a Ball, or Sunset Coasters discontinue, because Pride has resurrected Fruits in Suits?  Of course they shouldn’t – and nor should we stop doing what we are doing simply because Pride has had a bad year and made poor decisions.

In the upcoming community forum and Pride Annual General Meeting, we will be happy to address GAYinWA’s role in the community.  However, we hope this discussion isn’t used as a distraction from the real questions, such as why 1,000 people abandoned Fairday last year, why 500 people less people attended the party, why Pride realised a $70,000 deterioration in net revenue in just one year and what format the Parade should take in the future.  We will also assume that, if GAYinWA, as a business that is a net contributor to Pride WA, is to be subject to such scrutiny, then we will also have an open and frank discussion about those businesses that are net beneficiaries of Pride WA and the events it stages.

Our experience, both during the time we served on Pride committees and sub-committees, and during the time that others have done the heavy lifting, is that Pride is at its best when it focuses on its core events.  Historically, in the years that Pride returns a profit, the committee of the day has prioritised working hard to ensure Fairday, the Parade and the Party are all successes.  In the years that it has returned losses, it has often been because committees have become overambitious, often with good intentions, and committed to new events and expenditure.  Our view is that Pride has a bright future if it listens to the community, reshapes its core events to make them more reflective of contemporary community needs and then focuses on those events, without getting distracted.  With Pride rarely having a committee that is more than half full, it is ridiculous for anyone to claim the answer to its problems is for other organisations to stop staging events and for Pride to become the only organiser of events for LGBT Western Australians.

People and organisations with the resources, passion, ideas and energy to stage new events for our community should be welcomed and supported, not criticised - particularly if they are willing to take on the financial risk themselves and especially when they are willing to donate their profits to local community groups.

Have we got it wrong?

News that Pride WA was struggling to break even at the end of 2009 came as a surprise to many within Perth's LGBT community, including myself, with most active observers believing decisions had been taken over the last two years to ensure the crippling losses of the 2007 Pride year could never happen again.

At the end of 2007, Pride was on the brink of certain collapse after recording losses of more than $20,000 at each of that year’s Fairday and party events.  That year, Pride lost more than $50,000, leaving the organisation more than $30,000 in the red.  The fact that Pride was able to march on was due entirely to the admirable generosity of current co-president Charles Denham, who loaned $35,000 to the organisation.

Mr Denham's loan presented the incoming 2008 committee with a clean slate and the previous year's near-death experience provided the new committee with significant goodwill from the community and the space they needed to make important decisions about the future of both Fairday and the party.

Decisions taken included engaging an events management company to run Fairday under a revenue and expense sharing arrangement, and relocating the party to Connections Nightclub, again, under a revenue and expense sharing arrangement.  These decisions were designed to mitigate the financial risk of staging the events and appeared to work quite well in 2008, with Pride's annual report for the year reporting Fairday as breaking even and the party netting $15,000 for Pride.  These were both very positive outcomes and a massive turnaround on the 2007 results.  Pride reported ending the 2008 year more than $30,000 in the black (excluding the funds owed to Mr Denham).

Now, at the end of 2009, Pride has recorded another significant loss.  While the GAYinWA blog has undertaken not to publish specific figures ahead of the accounts being audited, we can report that this year's loss appears to be Pride's second largest annual loss on record, second only to the loss incurred two years ago.  Fortunately, from the figures that have been provided to us, Pride is not broke.  If you exclude the $30,000 still owed to Mr Denham, Pride is in the black, albeit narrowly.

As a life member and long-time committee member of Pride WA who understands how difficult it is to make ends meet from year to year while trying to meet the expectations of both ordinary community members and the businesses that rely upon pride for income, it gives me no pleasure to report Pride's 2009 loss.  Despite what some people like to convey, the GAYinWA blog wants to see a strong and sustainable Pride, which is why we have raised funds for Pride at three of our events over the last year.  In fact, from what I can tell, the only substantive disagreement we have with the current committee is over what form the Parade should take in the future.

That said, our view is that any discussion over the future of Pride has to take place in the context of all the facts.  As Mr Denham said to me this morning, “we have to stop pussy footing around and call a spade a spade.”  And the truth is that Pride has struggled to survive financially for a number of years.  The only reason it is around today is because of the philanthropy of Mr Denham and if Pride has another year like it had this year or in 2007, the organisation will again face being wound up.  This is not being "negative" - it is just calling a spade a spade.

In the recent Sunday Times article, Mr Denham was quoted as attributing Pride’s poorer financial performance in 2009 to a decline in both corporate sponsorship and event attendance, with each of these, in turn, attributed to changed spending patterns resulting from the global financial crisis and a diminishing interest in gay and lesbian themed events, respectively.  Mr Denham attributed the latter to the growing social acceptance of gay and lesbian people.

After looking at the figures, it is clear that Pride’s 2009 loss is only attributable in small part to lower levels of corporate sponsorship.  The truth is, despite the hard work of successive Committees over a number of years in this area, Pride has never really achieved significant cash sponsorship from the corporate sector and the V-Energy sponsorship of 2008 referred to in the Sunday Times article amounted to only $3,000 - the loss of which accounts for only a tiny proportion of the deterioration in Pride's financial performance.

Poorer attendances at Pride events appears to be a much larger factor, with Mr Denham confirming to the GAYinWA blog that the attendance at Fairday had fallen for the second successive year, with 1,000 fewer people coming through the gates in 2009, compared to 2008.  Pride's arrangements with Independent Events, the contractor that manages Fairday on their behalf, sees Pride collect all of the gate and 35 per cent of the bar receipts, so the impact of 1,000 fewer people coming through the gate will have hit Pride particularly hard.

While it may come as a surprise to the people who queued outside Connections Nightclub, waiting to get into a Pride party they were told was at capacity, Pride has revealed to the GAYinWA blog that the total attendance at the 2009 party was down on 2008 by about 500 people, with Connections reporting a significant drop in bar sales per person.  In the lead-up to this year's party, Pride Treasurer Andrew Baietta told the GAYinWA blog that 1,000 pre-sale tickets had sold out.  However, Pride has now reported that door sales were significantly down and, as a result, Connections Nightclub significantly decreased their contribution to Pride in 2009.  That said, Connections Nightclub's overall cash support of Pride WA remained substantial and is certainly greater than the negligible contribution of the small handful of other businesses that make a killing on the back of the the hundreds of hours of free labour put in by Pride's committee members and volunteers.

Other factors in Pride's 2009 loss included a pretty chunky loss by the Pride Ball, poorer attendances and increased venue hire costs at the 2009 film festival, decreased membership levels, increased spending on items such as print advertising and the purchase of about $5,000 in merchandise that failed to sell.  Abolishing the entry fee for the Parade was an admirable initiative to encourage participation in Pride's 20th year, however it didn't help Pride's bottom line and reveals how difficult it is arousing interest in an event that is now a generation old.

As mentioned earlier, the discussion presented in the Sunday Times attributed the decline in numbers at Pride events to external factors like the global financial crisis and the growing acceptance of gay and lesbian folk by the broader community.  While these may have impacted on some events, my feeling is that, if we leave the analysis at this, we won't have explored all the reasons and we won't have learned what we need to learn to ensure Pride has a future.

While I acknowledge that the increasing acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the broader community has had a real and ongoing impact on patronage at gay and lesbian venues and involvement and volunteerism in gay and lesbian community groups, I do not accept that it has had a detrimental effect on all events targeting gay and lesbian people.  For example, while Parade participant and spectator numbers fell steadily throughout the "noughties", Fairday numbers increased each year over the same period until 2008.  Further, while the 2009 Pride Film Festival was poorly attended, the 2008 season was arguably the best attended on record, despite GAYinWA staging the first ever GlamFest six months earlier.  In addition, pre-sale tickets alone at the 2009 party outnumbered total ticket sales at each of the 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 Pride parties.

So, why did all attendances fall in 2009?  This is one of the key questions facing participants in Pride's community forum and Annual General Meeting in the months ahead.  From my perspective, I would find it believable that an almost complete absence of the Pride Festival in the mainstream media could have contributed to a lack of awareness of Pride events this year.  The truth is, only a small proportion of gay and lesbian people actually get their news from local gay and lesbian media.  This means that a promotion strategy that includes advertising in the mainstream media, as well as generating mainstream publicity, positive or negative, is essential if Pride is to generate the awareness of its events it needs.  This web site was roundly criticised by some members of the current committee for trying to stir up a bit of controversy about the new roundabout on James Street in the lead-up to the most recent Parade and we were told we were being negative.  Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing you sometimes need to do to get mainstream media attention.

A significant decrease in party door sales is not surprising, given the ongoing decline in Parade spectator numbers.  While the Parade isn't only about the number of people involved, higher levels of spectator and participant numbers do flow through to increased party door sales, with more people on the street after the event.  It is also possible that the understaffing of the door at the party, with patrons waiting up to an hour to get in, may have caused many people seeking a ticket to party at other, easier to access venues.

The decrease in the attendance at Fairday for the second successive year is very concerning.  Long known as our community's favourite day of the year, Fairday grew every year since it was first staged until an entry fee was introduced and Russell Square was segregated into a non-drinking area that includes stalls and a licensed entertainment area.  My view is that the reason for the decline in Fairday attendances can be found in these two factors.  The problem is, it isn't immediately clear what can be done about it.  The financial impact of abolishing the entry fee would be significant. Enabling people to drink throughout the whole venue would lock unaccompanied minors out of the event. Ditching the bar altogether might make the event a bit boring for some.  What to do?

Whatever the reasons for the deterioration in Pride's financial performance in 2009, Pride is again at a critical point.  The solutions we thought the 2008 committee had found to the problems of 2007 failed in 2009 and the organisation is again solvent only as a result of Mr Denham's generosity.  The consultation process Pride is currently undertaking in response to the debate about the future of the Pride Parade will take on a broader, more critical meaning now, with the incoming 2010 committee conscious that another poor financial performance would almost certainly lead to the winding up of the organisation.

For once and for all and with people’s egos and self-interest checked at the door, we need to reach a decision about what Pride’s objectives should be, what events it should and shouldn’t stage and how it should be managed.  The current model isn’t sustainable and it hasn’t been for some time. Two years ago, Mr Denham’s generosity enabled us to defer this conversation, but it was always going to be revisited.

As Mr Denham said, it is time to stop pussy footing around.

GET INVOLVED

Have your say on all of the above issues at Pride’s open community forum, which will be staged at Loton Park Tennis Club, cnr Bulwer and Lord Streets, Perth, on Monday 8th Feb, commencing at 7pm.  Download our Pride Parade discussion paper here.

The people that bring you The Great Gay & Lesbian Debate during Pride month every October have returned to launch another new exciting event for Perth's LGBT community, with GAYinWA Events staging a Summertime Debate outdoors in Luxe's beautiful bamBOO lounge on Sunday 21st February, from 5pm.

Patrons will be warmed up by the funky tunes of dj dirty den, before our star-studded lineup of debaters take to the bamBOO stage to discuss the topic, "we don't want marriage anyway!"  Perth MLA John Hyde will be joined on stage by celebrity lawyer Patti Chong Greens MLC and community icon Giz Watson, newly elected Maylands MLA Lisa Baker, former Democrats Senator Brian Breig, Gay & Lesbian Equality Chair Rod Swift, former GLCS Chair Mark Woodman and former Pride Patron Aram Hosie.

The debate will be chaired by former Pride Co-President and newly elected Bassendean Town Mayor John Gangell and promises to be a riotous and comical affair, in the tradition of our October debates.

In addition to experiencing a highly entertaining and (hopefully) controversial debate, patrons will also be able to enjoy Perth's most beautifully made cocktails and order delicious gourmet pizzas straight from the wood fire.

A Summertime Debate will raise funds to help GAYinWA Events stage the GlamFest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, which will be staged between 15-18 April, 2010.  Keep reading the GAYinWA blog for more details about Perth's premiere gay and lesbian film festival in the new year.

As with all GAYinWA events, part proceeds from the event will be donated to a local community group and we will announce details of our benefiting partner in the new year.  Over the last two years, GAYinWA events have raised more than $10,000 for local community groups, including more than $4,000 for Loton Park Tennis Club, $2,500 for GLCS, $2,500 for the GLBTI Retirement Association and $1,900 for Pride WA.

Only 150 tickets to this boutique event will be on sale.  Tickets are on sale now for $20 from Travel Forever on Barrack Street, Perth.  Credit card holders will be able to purchase tickets over the phone from 11 January by phoning 0428 425 023 (booking fees apply).  Tickets will be available on the door for $30 if available.

Check out highlights from the first Great Gay & Lesbian Debate below.